


Red Bracelet

by 125xuxi



Category: (여자)아이들 | (G)I-DLE, NCT (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Idol AU, they're basically shy people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 07:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20372890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/125xuxi/pseuds/125xuxi
Summary: In which Song Yuqi and Lucas confronted both of their feelings





	Red Bracelet

**SONG YUQI SLUMPED HER HEAD ON A HEADREST**, sighing in contempt. The sky was already dark by the time she arrived in China yet the city lights remain blinking and catching her attention. She peeked at the busy road through the black-tinted van, completely ignoring the calls her manager made. Once he was done calling the PD for the show Keep Running and the receptionist hotel they were making their way to, his phone burst with ‘Ding!’ sounds multiple times, signaling that he was learning Mandarin through Duolingo.

Yuqi didn’t understand why the manager was so adamant on being proficient in Mandarin when he had her. She could speak for him in China and translate everything to the Korean man but he was determined. “If you’re doing well here, maybe we would have to fly here more. I can’t keep depending on you,” was his reason. She helped him, of course. And sometimes she would catch him mispronouncing words and keep the amusement to herself.

But now in the car, she wanted nothing but silence. The flight wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t a pleasure either. And the truth was she was nervous. She kept looking at the buildings around her, hoping that her mind would stop grinding the impending sound of _Lucas Lucas Lucas_ in her head but it was to no avail.

Funnily enough, she didn’t feel this way when she was making her debut last year. And she had prepared and trained for years to debut! But just the idea of Lucas, or should she call Xuxi in this new show they were in together, made her unjustifiably anxious. So she did what she knew best. Taking her bag and rummaging through it, she found the red bracelet that Lucas lost. She meant to give it back but the timing was never perfect.

_Once I give this back to him, I won’t feel this anymore_. She analyzed the bracelet tentatively (as if she didn’t do it for months), looking for anything new but of course nothing was there. It was merely a string of red. Ordinary. No jewels whatsoever. But the way that it was smudged and looked worn out, she knew that this bracelet meant a lot to him. He probably never took it off before.

It was behind the studio set. The first time they met. She was just a rookie with an explosive debut song and he was… well, it was hard to grasp his group’s concept but she knew he debuted the same year as her. They were even the same age so she knew she didn’t need to be extra polite like a junior to a senior. Nevertheless, she was polite anyway. Or she meant to be but Lucas flashed a big smile and waved, eyes only on her.

“You’re Chinese too, right?” He asked. Yuqi nodded, slightly amused. They were guests in the show Knowing Brothers for the foreigner edition after all.

“I’m Yuqi. Song Yuqi,” She introduced herself but Lucas just laughed gently._ So energetic_, Yuqi thought to herself.

“Oh! I like your song,” He clapped his hand in front of his chest, motioning Latata’s signature move. Yuqi was quite stunned of his bubbly personality despite them meeting each other for the first time.

That was the first time she eyed Lucas’s red bracelet. It was sitting on his wrist nice and loosely, moving a few times as the owner moves his hands. Once he was done fooling around, she looked at Lucas, meeting his eyes.

She saw him before. Well, technically not in person but on his group’s music video. His dirty blonde hair was gelled and pushed upwards, giving space for his forehead. His lips were puckered in light pink, giving the natural look but still accentuate his features. He looked tall in the music video, too. Yet as he was standing in front of her right now with his brown hair and clear eyes, Yuqi couldn’t believe how tall and more beautiful he looked than in the music video.

Of course she wouldn’t check it out if she didn’t do her research. Being a guest on Knowing Brothers was her first solo gig. As if being without her members was not excruciating enough, she had to join in with people in the industry that she didn’t know personally. Knowing the casts and guests’ quirks would help her more in the long run.

Somewhere along the conversation, Lucas disappeared when a stylist called him over. Before leaving Yuqi, Lucas flashed a big toothpaste commercial smile and introduced himself meekly, “Oh I’m Lucas, by the way,” and headed off behind the walls.

She smiled to herself, thinking that with that kind of personality it wouldn’t be hard to liven the atmosphere when they were shooting. She wasn’t a shy person, in fact, she knew when to talk and to energize a situation but having Lucas around would be a bonus.

She was about to head into the set when a stylist tapped on her, giving her a foreign-looking bracelet. The stylist mistook Lucas’s bracelet as hers. No worries, I’ll give him later. But that later turned into months.

///

Yuqi didn’t mean to keep the bracelet for months. She brought it in her bag the whole time, thinking that if they might stumble into each other, she would hand it over. There was the idol sports event that they both went to. It was after they first met each other and their episode was already being aired.

Yuqi donned herself in petite red dress, having her hair being done by a stylist while her hands were playing with a ball that she would use for her gymnastic performance. She thought that day she would give the bracelet back to him but with cameras around them, that would be a bad idea. She was a rookie after all. One bad publicity could carry the whole (G)-idle down. She shuddered at the thought.

It didn’t help that she didn’t have his phone number. She could ask for it from her manager but she remembered the day they were shooting together. After it was done, her manager’s icy advice ran through her spine. “Don’t ever think about dating. You don’t want to be like your sunbae,”

By sunbae, he meant Hyuna willing to leave the company with her boyfriend. It wasn’t a bad decision for a sunbae but for Song Yuqi, only a few months after debuting, that was a death wish. Even though she intended to ask for Lucas’s phone number just to hand the bracelet back to him, she could tell that the manager would still be pissed. Any contact counts.

Her head was filled with the whole ordeal of her memory lane that she didn’t realize that in front of the hotel’s elevator stood a tall, ruffled hair boy with a mask on. She didn’t notice at first but the guy’s deep raspy voice calling her “Yuqi” was familiar, so she turned her head.

The boy took off his mask, showing her that smile she had ingrained in her head for months. Of course it was Lucas. Of course they would stay in the same hotel. Of course by some twist of fate they stood close to each other.

Being superstitious wasn’t Yuqi’s forte. She was a realist, idealizing her goals and work hard to get to her destination. She believed in effort. Luck? Well, maybe an ounce of it but not much. So when she temporarily owned the all too familiar red bracelet, she was skeptical and curious of what made it so important to Lucas.

Her beliefs were shaken when she had the bracelet. Every time she held it, Lucas always showed up. When she held it at the idol athlete event, she saw Lucas right after, walking to a court but he was too far to reach. When she organized her bag in her dorm, stumbling upon the bracelet again, the television that she turned on showed guests for the tv program Law of the Jungle. Right at the moment she was focusing on the television, Lucas’s tanned skin appeared with his big goofy smile and eyes flickering.

And now, like some kind of a sick joke, Lucas appeared right in front of her eyes after she held onto the bracelet in the car.

Unmasked Lucas bowed to Yuqi’s Korean manager before they entered the elevator together. There was a calming, piano music in the elevator, intended to give a soothing vibe for their hotel guests. Unfortunately, Yuqi was anything but calm. She held both her hands together, feeling an electric burn after her finger touched Lucas as they pressed on the same button.

“Nice to see you again,” Lucas spoke in Mandarin. Yuqi’s manager frowned, cursing himself for not understanding it.

“Me too,” Yuqi replied in Mandarin, confusing her manager even more. “I have something to give you but not now,”

She eyed her manager at the back who was carrying her bag. His hands were already full.

“Already?” Lucas smirked before continued. “I didn’t think of buying you souvenirs, though. Sorry,”

“It’s not that. It’s your bracelet. You know, the red one?”

“You have it with you!?”

Shocked, Lucas held both of Yuqi’s wrists. His eyes were wide, expecting to see it on her wrists but of course, her wrists were empty. Yuqi was shocked too by Lucas’s sudden act. They met eyes before but being cramped in a tiny space with no cameras, she was a bit unguarded. Her heart started to beat fast. She was afraid that anyone would hear it.

Lucas realized his spontaneous action caught everyone in the elevator off guard. He bowed his head, obviously embarrassed. The manager cleared his throat, disapproving of what he saw. It wasn’t enough that he couldn’t understand Mandarin and now that boy’s brash act made the poor manager confused even more. Yuqi kept her head down, automatically let her hair covered her burning cheeks. She switched to Korean, hoping that the manager would not interrogate her later.

“Yeah. I’ll give it to you later on the set,” to which Lucas smiled.

She wanted to believe that she developed claustrophobia so she could blame the tiny space for making her heart beats fast. Faster than the music played in the elevator. But deep down she knew that it wasn’t her being claustrophobic because when she looked at Lucas’s smile as she walked out of it, her heart was practically racing.

And not a good kind of race.

///

Lucas eyed on the building’s mirror to assess his look, casually fixing his hair. His blue apparel matched Yuqi’s as they were on the same team in the same show. Yuqi was puffing behind him. Her small steps tried to match Lucas’s as they got on the same car.

The car was filled with cameras on each side and at the center of the car. Only Lucas and Yuqi would be in this car aside from the crew members. Truthfully, he was a little nervous, hence the mirror check. Somehow, checking his own look gave him a sense of calm. He knew his face features; the big, bright eyes, ever so inquisitive and his lips that he jokingly (and cockily) called ‘sexy’ on camera. When the world of glitz and glamor pulled him into somewhere foreign, he knew he could trust his face for a sense of familiarity. _That_ made him calm. Almost.

After a couple of footages of Yuqi playing with a phone that the show Keep Running was advertising, the cameras started to show blank screen, signaling the dead battery. Yuqi and Lucas could hear an older crew groaned in disbelief, saying they shouldn’t let an intern be in charge of the cameras causing the intern bowed endlessly, realizing his mistake.

Lucas and Yuqi shot a sympathetic smile to the intern. At least for Lucas, he didn’t mind. He could use this time to rest. The distance to their destination was still far anyway. He started to close his eyes, wishing that he could have a good nap but maybe it was because of Yuqi, or whatever, his nervousness before he got in the car was still there.

They took pictures together just a few moments ago, filling the car with laughter. Now, it was a graveyard. No sound coming out of anyone. Nothing. His eyes peeked to see Yuqi facing the window, not looking at Lucas at all.

Her light brown curly hair was styled in a ponytail. Lucas once asked about her hair, whether it was naturally curly. He couldn’t remember what she said afterwards but he liked seeing her head bobbing here and there near him. With that hair and her soft features, she was, undoubtedly mesmerizing in Lucas’s eyes.

He smiled to himself unknowingly as he recalled his conversation with Taeyong a few months back after his Knowing Brothers schedule in South Korea. He just finished his shooting and heading to the dorm. Some members were in the dorm and some were off practicing. As he heard Taeyong calling him from the kitchen, he giddily went to the source of the call with a big, goofy smile.

“Someone’s happy,” Taeyong observed, carefully giving Lucas a plate of fried rice he cooked.

“The shooting went well,” Lucas said with his mouth already full.

“And?” “

I met Yuqi,” He bashfully smiled while still eating.

It was no surprise that Lucas had a few celebrity crushes among his fans. In fact, some of his predebut pictures were discovered where he went to a fanmeeting before. But having a celebrity crush on Yuqi was something that only he and his close friends knew. The managers would deep fry him if they knew—let alone the fans.

Taeyong patted Lucas’s head, smiling to himself. He appreciated that Lucas was being honest to him. Keeping things like this as a secret could be fatal if his celebrity crush turns serious. And as a leader, Taeyong knew that he would need to clean Lucas’s mess if he screwed. Still, he trusted Lucas enough to let him make his own judgment. Although Lucas can be playful at times, he knew that underneath the surface of fun and glamorous idol life, his body and mind were already sold to the business. And when business mix with pleasure, things can go awry.

“But it was embarrassing though,” Lucas continued.

“I asked her if she was Chinese as if I didn’t know,”

“You were nervous,” Taeyong stated matter-of-factly.

“I was. God, I look so stupid,”

“Stupidly in love” Ten sings as he and Kun entered the kitchen, stretching the word _love_ long enough that Lucas had to hit him to stop him.

As Ten and Kun were having fun teasing the younger in the room, Taeyong’s face fell deep into serious mode. Although he trusted Lucas, he couldn’t help worrying about dating scandal if it will ever happen. Lucas _just_ debuted. And with the unstable group system, anything can happen. The worst case scenario would be that Lucas would get kicked out of the group. And what will happen next to the rest of the members? They were still new to the industry. All of them were hungry to make name for themselves and bad publicity would just tarnish their reputation. In the end, they would get an empty plate.

“Hyung?” Lucas touched Taeyong who was deep in his thoughts. “It’s nothing serious, I promise,”

Hearing that, Taeyong couldn’t help but gave a defeated smile. Only fate will know for sure whether Lucas could keep his promise.

///

The problem is; Lucas was wavered. Here he was after that afternoon conversation, sitting next to the pretty, cute, funny, adaptable, talented Song Yuqi (maybe he did think of her too highly. In no way someone can be that amazing, right?). He tried to shake off the celebrity crush feelings but as soon as they get to know each other more, he sensed that it was not a harmless crush anymore.

Maybe Ten was right. Maybe.

“Are you okay?” Yuqi asked, finally looking at Lucas after mindlessly looking out the window. Truthfully, she was thinking about how silent they both have become once the cameras stopped rolling. She would wait for Lucas to open his mouth (because he always does) but as she turned around, she saw him with an unreadable expression.

Brows furrowed, lips pursed, a hand on chin. It was a sight, Yuqi would admit to herself. She tried to inch closer, only to accidently touched his hand. Like touching a burning pot, she pulled her hand fast. And there it went, her heart thumping fast, _again_.

Lucas tried to ignore Yuqi’s fast reflex. Being in the same industry, he knew what she was instructed on what to do and not do. Apparently merely touching a male colleague in the backseat of a car is in the don’t-do list.

He threw in the public-face smile. “Yeah, I’m fine,”

The smile was bright enough to fool the public, but not to Yuqi. Either way, she didn’t press any further. Everyone has problems and sure, they did grow closer together but she imagined there would be a lot of things behind closed doors and the cameras. It was something she got used to now after months.

Lucas cleared his throat, inching closer until their shoulders touched. Yuqi peeked at the crews in front of them—all with their eyes closed except for the driver.

“It’s just… my bracelet means a lot to me and you bringing it back just unload a lot of things,” Lucas half-whispered in Korean, careful not to wake the crews.

Yuqi’s interest was piqued. “Like what?”

“You know I’m from Hong Kong,” to which Yuqi nodded. “And flying to South Korea alone is scary because I was so young. I, uh, bought this bracelet in Hong Kong just as a reminder, I guess. Something like I know who I am, who I want to be, who I love.

I was so afraid that when I become famous, I will forget of what I stand for. I don’t want to look at the mirror and think ‘_who_ are you?’. Being in South Korea alone is scary. But not knowing who I am is much worse,” He sighed before continued. “So thank you, Yuqi. It sounded silly. I could’ve buy it wherever but it’s not the same. I guess it’s the sentiments,”

Lucas’s words trailed off like a bullet train hitting Yuqi right through her heart. It was fast and accurate, depicting her own lonely thoughts. She knew she had Shuhua and Minnie that could relate to her yet somehow, always having gigs without her members and being in places where everyone sees her and talking in a language that was not her familiar to her native tongue, made her feel like a lost puppy.

It was just a piece of red string. Nothing special about it. No jewels whatsoever. If Yuqi didn’t take it when Lucas lost it, it would be dumped and joined in with the other trash at a landfill. It was worn out of sweat and four seasons in South Korea for many years. Yet it meant so much to Lucas as a little reminder. Yuqi could use that little reminder, too.

She didn’t feel so connected until now.

And it’s not just connected in a way that they both felt the same hardship. It’s the eyes locking persistently before she broke it to watch his lips. The quiet car was heading to a tunnel, inviting them to a glimpse of darkness with just enough light to see the road. As the car got closer to it, so did they.

She saw him pursing his lips just as he did when he was focused minutes ago. She couldn’t stop thinking about it just as her heart couldn’t stop beating aggressively. To say she was nervous was an understatement. The adrenaline coursing through her body made her think the unthinkable. She tried to think of the don’t-do list she had but for now, it was erased in her mind.

They entered the tunnel, and Yuqi’s wide eyes couldn’t be found anymore. Lucas searched for her hands and she squeezed his in return. They both didn’t know what they were doing but it felt right at that time. _Follow your heart_—the mantra he used every day. And now he finally knew what it meant.

He followed his heart, guiding himself to Yuqi’s lips. It was soft and warm. It felt like home; safe and sound and everything that reminds him of security. Yuqi wasn’t the only one that felt the connection because he did too.

Yuqi suddenly broke the kiss, whispering to his lips, “Your bracelet has magic,” She smiled before continued. “Everytime I touch it,” She touched his red bracelet sitting pretty on his left wrist. “Somehow you always show up,” To which Lucas chuckled before deepening their kiss.

Lucas couldn’t stop thinking that Ten was definitely right. It’s not a celebrity crush anymore. He was insanely, stupidly in love.

**Author's Note:**

> for whatever reason it felt kinda weird writing this? maybe because of the projection so bear in mind that they are real people and uhhhhh don't really take this piece seriously, i guess. @bedror on curious cat if u wish to ask (?) ok bye


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